US President Donald Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This event, in itself not very significant (promise - not to marry, nominate - not yet hand in) coincided with a much more serious shift in the political elites of the United States: Trump openly challenged the Pentagon elite and accused it of serving the military industrial complex of America.

However, everything in order.

For the Nobel Peace Prize - 2021, Trump was nominated by the Norwegians, more precisely, the member of the Norwegian Parliament from the Progress Party, Christian Tubring-Gjedde.

The Norwegians are consistent: in 2018, the Progress Party tried to nominate Trump for the Nobel Prize for his contribution to solving the problem of nuclear disarmament on the Korean Peninsula.

But then something did not grow together, and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia received the award.

This time, Trump is offered a prize for having achieved an agreement on the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

He acted, so to speak, as a broker when concluding a deal between two partners who, until recently, could not tolerate each other.

Tubring Gyedde even said that Trump did more than most of the other nominees in establishing peace among peoples.

“I'm not a big Trump supporter,” the Norwegian told Fox News.

- The (Nobel) committee should look at the facts and judge (Trump) on his deeds, not on how he sometimes behaves.

The people who have received the Nobel Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump.

For example, Barack Obama did nothing. "

For an American, such words addressed to the first black president, who still remains an icon of all liberals and progressives, sound seditious.

But Tubring Giedde is a European, he can.

In his letter to the Nobel Committee, the Norwegian pointed out an even more terrible thing (from the point of view of the liberal American mainstream).

“In fact,” he wrote, “Trump interrupted a 39-year line of American presidents who either started wars or involved the United States in international armed conflicts.

The last president to avoid this was Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter. " 

Indeed: Reagan sent American soldiers to Grenada and Lebanon, Bush Sr. was remembered for "Desert Storm" in Kuwait, Clinton - the executioner of Yugoslavia, about Bush Jr. and his fight against terrorism, which resulted in two inglorious US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan , and there is nothing to say.

Even the “dove of peace” B.Kh.

Obama was noted for his participation in the intervention in Libya and the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

And only Donald Trump not only did not start new wars, but from the very beginning of his presidency tried to reduce the US military presence in distant lands.

In fact, all that can be presented to the current president is several missile attacks on Syrian airfields and the elimination of IRGC General Qassem Soleimani in January this year.

For the leader of the planet's strongest power, accustomed to flexing his muscles in response to every potentially unfriendly move, this is practically pacifism.

Now, eight weeks before the presidential election, which will decide which course America will take in the third decade of the 21st century, Trump's peacefulness is becoming an important trump card in his fight against another contender for the Oval Office seat - Sleepy Joe Biden.

Biden was not always a sweet, senile grandfather in the mild stage of insanity.

In the old days, he had a reputation as one of the main hawks in the Democratic Party.

Liberal media do not like to talk about this, but few American military intervention in the affairs of other states since 1991 has taken place without Biden's active political participation.

It was Biden who pushed for lifting the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes.

None other than Biden in April 1993 told Slobodan Milosevic: "I think you are a damned war criminal and that you should be tried as a war criminal."

It was Biden who pushed for NATO's eastward expansion, supported the barbaric bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, defended the Kosovar Albanians, and even - along with Republican hawk McCain - pushed President Clinton to use ground forces against the Serb army.

Biden was a staunch supporter of the war in Afghanistan - in 2001 he famously said, "Whatever the cost, we must do it!"

Finally, as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden was instrumental in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

It was reported that he called specially trained "witnesses" to hearings in his committee, who told the senators about what a monster Saddam Hussein is, how many weapons of mass destruction he has in his arsenals and how he patronizes al-Qaeda.

In reality, Hussein's regime was an enemy of al-Qaeda * and the Iraqi leader did not have any weapons of mass destruction.

Biden simply deceived his colleagues in the Senate, and this lie cost America dearly: more than 4500 US soldiers and officers died in the sands of Iraq.  

And now Biden's hawkish past is playing a bad joke with him.

Sleepy Joe can position himself as a liberal, minority best friend and Obama loyal associate.

He can promise voters an economic boost (inevitable after the current recession) and a victory over COVID-19.

But he cannot change his past.

And the main thing that he cannot change in this past is his attitude to the war.

Against this background, the pacifist Trump, and even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, looks much more advantageous.

Biden's rating is already sagging - even sociological polls that are very inclined towards him no longer give him more than eight percentage points of lead over Trump, and more objective ones, such as Rasmussen, show +2 percentage points at all.

But the main thing is the trend, and it inexorably testifies to the fall in the popularity of Sleepy Joe.

That is why the issue of "war and peace" is of great importance for both candidates.

In this situation, Trump's words, spoken by him on Monday during a press conference at the White House, sounded like a bolt from the blue.

“I’m not saying that the US Armed Forces love me.

I am loved by ordinary soldiers, but the top of the Pentagon is probably not.

They just want to fight wars, so as not to upset all these wonderful companies that make bombs, planes and everything else.

But we are emerging from endless wars, ”the US President said.

In fact, Trump accused the leadership of the US Armed Forces of being guided not so much by state interests as by the interests of the military-industrial complex (MIC).

Journalists, of course, immediately noticed the similarity between these words of Trump and the famous farewell speech of Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, in which he first used the term "military-industrial complex."

On January 17, 1961, the outgoing Eisenhower said: “The combination of a huge military establishment and a powerful military industry is new in the American experience.

We recognize the urgent need for this development.

Nevertheless, we must not forget that this can lead to serious consequences and affect the very structure of our society.

We must beware of the unjustified influence of the military-industrial complex on the government and must not allow this influence to turn into a threat to our freedoms and the democratic process. "

These words of Eisenhower (general and war hero) for many years determined the attitude of many progressive - then, however, this word had a slightly different meaning - Americans to the process of uncontrolled growth of American military power.

For the liberals and democrats of the 1960s - 1970s of the last century, the military-industrial complex was synonymous with a powerful internal enemy, which, if given free rein, would lead the country to a fascist dictatorship (dozens of thrillers and dystopias have been written and shot on this topic).

But now everything has turned upside down. 

For today's liberals and progressives, the main fascist is Trump, but his enemies are wonderful and nice people, even the military and military-industrial complex lobbyists.

That is why the liberal media, which, in theory, should treat the Pentagon and the "military clique" in general, at least with cautious skepticism, went so mad.

"Trump has launched an unprecedented public attack on the leadership of the military!"

- panics, for example, CNN. 

And shortly before Trump made his loud statement, the editor-in-chief of the influential publication The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, published a lengthy article about how Trump disparaged the memory of the soldiers and officers who died for America.

According to Goldberg, who profusely cites unnamed witnesses to Trump's private conversations, the president called dead American soldiers "losers" and "suckers." 

Evidence?

For example, here is a story (of course, with reference to four anonymous people "who know the situation firsthand) about how Trump canceled a visit to an American cemetery near Paris during a visit to France in 2018.

The official version was that it was raining that day, and the Secret Service could not ensure the safe passage of the president by helicopter.

But in fact - and Goldberg knows exactly how it was!

- Trump was simply afraid that his hair would get disheveled in the rain, and in addition, he did not consider it necessary to honor the memory of the American soldiers who died in the First World War.

“Why should I go to this cemetery?

It's full of losers! "

- the president allegedly said. 

And there are more and more such petty leaks, designed to destroy Trump's reputation in the eyes of the military, and indeed patriots in general.

Even the "legend of American journalism" Bob Woodward was noted, who wrote the book "Rage", entirely devoted to the "revelations" of the owner of the White House.   

In this book, a lot of space is devoted to Trump's attitude towards high-ranking military personnel (Trump does not like them).

For example, the president allegedly said to his trade advisor Peter Navarro: “My damned generals are a bunch of pussies (My f *** ing generals are a bunch of pussies).

They care more about their unions than trade deals. "

Leaving aside the question of why generals should care about trade deals at all.

Even if we imagine that Trump said something like that, this only confirms the long-known truth: the 45th US President is primarily a businessman who thinks not about wars, but about making deals.

And this, whatever the goals of Bob Woodward and the liberal media that advertise his book with might and main ("Rage" will appear on the shelves only on September 15), rather speaks in his favor.

Well, and most importantly, his deeds speak in favor of Trump (remember what the Norwegian MP said?).

On Wednesday, speaking at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump announced specific figures for the reduction of US military contingents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of soldiers and officers in Iraq is planned to be reduced from 5,200 to 3,500, and the Afghan contingent - from 13 thousand to 4 thousand. Trump also reiterated his promise to completely withdraw troops from Afghanistan after the conclusion of a peace treaty between the country's authorities and Taliban leaders ** ...

Moreover, according to Fox News journalist Jennifer Griffin, these plans were developed even before Jeffrey Goldberg published his "revealing" article in the Atlantic.

“We often hear the phrase 'End of endless wars,'” White House spokeswoman Kaylee McEnani commented on Trump's speech.

"We don't often see how it's done."

It would seem that one should applaud Trump, who turned out to be brave enough to take responsibility for correcting the mistakes of his predecessors.

It is clear that he does this primarily in order to secure an advantage over his rival in the battle for the White House, but the essence does not change from this!

For the first time in many years, America is not expanding, but reducing its military presence in distant regions.

Thousands of American soldiers will return home, and thousands of families - both in the United States and the Middle East - can finally breathe a sigh of peace.

But neither journalists, nor highbrow experts, nor talking heads on TV are going to applaud Trump for his pacifism.

It is much more important for them that the aged hawk Biden win, in which the United States will surely get involved in another war.

It seems that common sense has finally come into conflict with liberal ideology - as straight as a rail, and just as unbreakable.

Therefore, it is not so important whether Trump will be given the Nobel Peace Prize this time or not.

It is much more important - and not only for the United States - whether he will succeed in winning this election.

If it succeeds, then the world will have a good chance of another four years without war.

* "Al-Qaeda" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 02.14.2003.

** "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 02.14.2003.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.